Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost for His Highest" Devotional for August 22

I indeed baptize you with water . . but He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire." Matthew 3:11

Have I ever come to a place in my experience where I can say - "I indeed - but He"? Until that moment does come, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Ghost means. I indeed am at an end, I cannot do a thing: but He begins just there - He does the things no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come as long as there is anything in the way either of goodness or badness. When He comes am I prepared for Him to drag into the light every wrong thing I have done? It is just there that He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean, He will put His feet; wherever I think I am clean, He will withdraw them.

Repentance does not bring a sense of sin, but a sense of unutterable unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am utterly helpless; I know all through me that I am not worthy even to bear His shoes. Have I repented like that? Or is there a lingering suggestion of standing up for myself? The reason God cannot come into my life is because I am not through into repentance.

"He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire." John does not speak of the baptism of the Holy Ghost as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ. "He shall baptize you." The only conscious experience those who are baptized with the Holy Ghost ever have is a sense of absolute unworthiness.

I indeed was this and that; but He came, and a marvellous thing happened. Get to the margin where He does everything.

 

 

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World Olivet Assembly believes in equipping believers with theological and practical resources that would enable them to advance the work the gospel.

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World Olivet Assembly (WOA) is a global gathering of evangelical churches and para-church organizations existing for the advancement of world mission.

World Olivet Assembly believes in equipping believers with theological and practical resources that would enable them to advance the work the gospel.